


Saint Tooru

by Elleh



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Angst, M/M, Retelling, Retelling - Sant Jordi Legend, This Is Sad, medieval setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 14:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleh/pseuds/Elleh
Summary: There’s blood on the battlefield, although it won’t be blood for much longer, nor does this cursed middle place deserve the gravity of being called a battlefield.The crops are tainted red, a massive mountain of muscles and fire and life groaning its pain through this kingdom, through the hundreds yet to come. There’s a knight at its belly, chest swell and sword sharp. The glitter of the setting sun turns his steel into fire. It’s hard to discern where the legend ends and where it begins. Men have always been easily confused by heroes in the depths of tragedy.The mountain falls. Red blood starts shaping into silky scarlet and protective green. The knight breathes in, breathes out, and as the echoes of the mountain’s death vanish on the vast sky, the knight goes to his knees.If he cries, no one remembers. Heroes’ tears have no place in fairytales.





	Saint Tooru

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for [Divine! Haikyuu!! Mythology Zine](https://hqmythologyzine.tumblr.com/). I retold a catalan legend, that of Sant Jordi (Saint George). I believe the story exists in different countries, but if you are curious about the version we tell in Catalonia, don't hesitate to ask me! Still, this is a pretty free-version. 
> 
> Warning: it is not a happy story, and it does not end well. If you aren't in the mood to read sad shit, or you don't like angst and bad, bad endings, I'm afraid this is not for you.

 

 

There’s blood on the battlefield, although it won’t be blood for much longer, nor does this cursed middle place deserve the gravity of being called a _battlefield_.

The crops are tainted red, a massive mountain of muscles and fire and life groaning its pain through this kingdom, through the hundreds yet to come. There’s a knight at its belly, chest swell and sword sharp. The glitter of the setting sun turns his steel into fire. It’s hard to discern where the legend ends and where it begins. Men have always been easily confused by heroes in the depths of tragedy.

The mountain falls. Red blood starts shaping into silky scarlet and protective green. The knight breathes in, breathes out, and as the echoes of the mountain’s death vanish on the vast sky, the knight goes to his knees.

If he cries, no one remembers. Heroes’ tears have no place in fairytales.

 

~

 

There’s a chant in Montblanc, and it goes like this:

 

_We have a dragon warrior_

_A protector of the realm_

_It shines in golden_

_At the edges of our veil_

_As fierce as we are_

_Our dragon will prevail_

_We are the warriors of Montblanc_

_And with fire, we will reign_

 

~

 

Hajime is ten when Tooru leaves. He is ten and small and biting down his lip to keep tears from spilling. He’s angry, so, so angry. A small fire is burning in his throat and in his brain, and when Tooru’s carriage vanishes in the lights of sunset, Hajime almost sees the dragon-mountain standing on its flanks and screaming his rage away.

But the mountain is still when the sun finally sets behind it, a shine in the holes that are its eyes, and then it’s gone, and so is Tooru.

“Come inside, Hajime. We don’t mourn those who leave us behind.”

Hajime follows his father, his words echoing together with their steps on the stone walls, leaving their marks on them. Hajime looks at his father’s back, drinks their shared silence, and then he peeks, because he can’t forget Tooru as easy as the sun had fallen behind Montblanc.

Looking over his shoulders, Hajime’s steps stutter. There’s no carriage coming back, of course; there’s only a set of doors, as tall as the sky, being closed. A cage and Hajime has fallen on the wrong side of it.

 

~

 

Hajime drowns on the tales of long past heroes and their impossible feats. He drinks from those legends to ease the loss away, and when the mind dries, he goes running to his sitter, book in hand.

She takes it, a shake on her smile. She takes Hajime, too, and sits him on her lap. It never took longer than two pages, for Tooru to crack the door open, shy and shiny-eyed.

She always took him too, a mountain of skirts and limbs and laughs. Hajime’d caress the pages while holding Tooru’s hand, and meanwhile, their minds would be fed and fed and fed. By swords and blood, dragons and princes and princesses.

Tooru would say, “You are made to be in books and legends.”

And because Hajime knows it to be true, he’d answer, “And so are you.”

There’s no Tooru this time, and the light on his sitter’s eyes is dull and gray. Hajime counts the pages, —two, four, ten—, but the door never opens, and his hand stays empty and cold.

“Maybe it’s time to go to bed, my prince.”

“Yes.”

His sitter is too smart to pass the slump on Hajime’s shoulders. Tapping his chin, she says, “You are remembered, my prince. Gone doesn’t mean forgotten.”

 

~

 

Hajime learns early enough that gone might not mean forgotten, but it sure entitles forgettable.

 

~

 

There’s another chant, written by the people. This one isn’t legend-like, and if any king would ever bother to listen to it, there would be no more mouths to sing it, nor ears to hear it. So they whisper it, small voices and lips, and it says:

 

_We lived under a dragon tyranny_

_For as long as we’ve been here_

_Our daughters vanished first_

_Then our doors bled_

_Our sons were next_

_And then our streets bled_

_Then our elders_

_And those in between_

_Till our land was covered in blood_

_And the dragon went back to sleep_

 

~

 

Tooru arrives in Portugal with a married sister and a bleeding head. His father doesn’t speak a word, and if disappointment could have a sound, it would be his silence.

The blue of the sea doesn’t ease Tooru’s sore muscles, his headache nor his broken heart. The gleam of the sun hurts his eyes, but at least there’s vast openness he can stare at, and not the shadow of a mountain he has grown to hate with all his might.

“Get inside, before you become an even bigger disgrace.”

“Yes, father.”

Still, Tooru lingers. He looks at the ocean, such a beautiful sight. He could learn to like it, even love it. The thought is sour. Loving somewhere else feels like stopping loving Hajime, and as much as Montblanc makes Tooru’s blood run cold, he can’t imagine a world where neither of them is a part of him.

“Tooru! Come inside _now_.”

Tooru goes. He doesn’t see the ocean again for the length of three months.

 

~

 

The memory of Hajime starts to fade with time. At the beginning it’s just a small blur on his eyes, teasing Tooru’s mind to figure out exactly what tone of green, what shade of brown. After six months Tooru can’t draw Hajime’s features, and by the end of the first year, Hajime’s a shadow in his mind, and a scar on his heart.

Tooru never forgets, though. There are some things in life one has to hold onto, and Hajime is one of them.

Father wouldn’t let him forget, either, even if Tooru had made a different choice.

But it’s okay. The threats and the hits and the wounds ground Tooru. His blood mixing with the soil brings balance to his soul. _I belong somewhere, now_. Portugal hurts in a way Tooru will never entirely embrace, but it’s home, and it’s his, and when the second year comes around, it’s a mirror of how much Tooru misses Hajime, and how hard he’s working to see him again.

 

~

 

At the age of fourteen, Hajime kills a man for the first time. His blood is warm and it splashes all over his armor and his face. For a long, long time, Hajime walks on the edge of numb shock. He goes around his business, commanding his soldiers, being prince and royal.

And then, one day, when he’s safe and warm and thoughtless, it finally catches with him.

Hajime throws up on the floor. He crawls on the bed and hugs himself, and for the longest of nights, he cries and cries and cries.

He might sob Tooru’s name. He might wish for his long gone friend, and the soothing touch of his hand. He might close his eyes and pretend is him, clearing the tears away.

It’s cleansing, but painful. Yearning for an embrace one knows will never happen hurts even more than knowing oneself a monster.

When he wakes up the next day, Hajime makes a pact with himself.

He’ll never let something as daily-like as killing a person get the best of him again, and if he ever again wishes for Tooru’s presence, he’d kill the thought, the same way he’ll keep killing any man who dares step in his way.

 

~

 

Tooru’s sister moves to France the day after Tooru turns sixteen. She leaves with two babies and a dead husband, waving goodbye a single time to the brother she’d probably never see again.

Father doesn’t allow for grief. Not a single moment of solitude or sadness to willow on it, and to avoid any misleading thought of emotion, Tooru spends his every awoken second training and training and bleeding into this soil, now completely his.

Portugal remembers those who have sacrificed themselves. Every monument, every legend says as much. Maybe Tooru’s sister will forget, maybe Hajime has long forgotten, but as long as Tooru’s soul keeps feeding this ground, a part of this world will remember him. He’d belong to something else.

His father goes to his knees, defeated by his son’s sword. Tooru’s panting, staring at the kneeling figure of a man whose seed had created him, and whose hate has shaped him.

It’s proud and painful, when his father says, “Congratulations, son. You are ready.”

Such a curse, the glee of knowing oneself capable of death.

 

~

 

No one talks about Montblanc’s legends anymore, because those who dare end up six feet under or chained in a cell. The commoners have their songs, written and approved by the royal ministry.

Dragons are a sign of God. And since only a king and his son are god-touched, only they can utter their names.

~

 

Tooru’s twenty when he makes it back to Montblanc.

There’s length in his shoulders, weight in his eyes. Long strings of hair fall over his gaze, as dark as the clothes he wears. No one dares step in front of him, the sound of coins and hidden weapons enough to scare even the bravest of them.

The tavern is empty, so early on the evening. Just a couple of drunks, a server and the owner walk around. Horses neigh outside.

“Would you like anything, sir?”

Tooru smiles. The scar on his forehead moves together with his lips, and the server flinches at the sight. There’s a stutter in his breathing. Tooru’s compelled to let silence stir to the point of awkwardness, but he’s not here to be remembered.

He’d have liked to be, of course. But foolish letters don’t usually receive anything but blank answers.

“A glass of wine, thank you.”

Hajime isn’t here. His memories have long forgotten the structure of Hajime’s shape, but time has taught Tooru other tricks. Sometimes, when a soul is so tangled in another one would have trouble separating the two, physical appearances mean nothing.  

Still, Tooru shouldn’t be waiting for Hajime to stride past the door all princely-like. He should know better. As if receiving a letter from a long gone friend could be interpreted as nothing but life-threatening. Tooru’s the son of a count, trained to be a warrior. He _knows_ better.

The server brings him his wine, and it’s dark and bodily. Tooru hates it as soon as it touches his tongue, and he grimaces and groans loud enough to make the server jump on his feet. Tooru’s moody, and the food is awful, and Hajime isn’t here, and the weapons weight too much on him.

He should go. Father was right, as usual. One can’t erase the past, as much as one wants.

“Tooru.”

And yet. And yet the simple sound of his name erases every day, every moment, every longing he’s been harboring for as long as he can remember. It erases a lifetime and creates a world of memories Tooru thought forever lost. He has a life in Portugal that has been shaped over the foundation of missing Hajime to his core, and now it’s gone.

Tooru stares up, away from his awful wine, and there he is, the prince of his nightmares and dreams, missing his crown, his bodyguards and even his nice clothes.

He’s never looked better, and Tooru can’t take the thought away when he smiles at Hajime and Hajime, like the mirror he is, smiles back at him.

 

~

 

Hajime talks about his father and his brothers, his castle and his kingdom. There’s little mention to Montblanc, because Tooru has always hated the mere sound of its name.

Hajime says, “I’m to be coronated king at my father’s sixty-fifth birthday.”

He says, “We’ve been at war, Tooru. Lost the south of the kingdom. We will have to fight soon for the head of the dragon, too.”

He says, “There’ve been people reported missing, and messages written in blood. Father thinks it’s the southerns, trying to scare us away from home.”

He says, “I’ve missed you. Look at you! Scarred and tall like a tree. Where did you get those muscles?”

And Tooru answers, “I’ve been trained. Father didn’t want me to be a little lordy lord, unable to do anything.”

Hajime drinks the lie with a nod and a smile, as truthful as always. Tooru’s stomach falls to his feet, guilt making the stupid wine a solid rock. Hajime keeps talking, closing the gap of ten years with tales and legends and battles and balls.

“So, are you married?”

“Not yet,” Hajime shrugs and drinks the wine with a happy sound. “Once we figure out who the victorious is on the east, I’ll pick a wife.”

Tooru hates the sound of that, and yet he nods and changes the topic.

 

~

 

Tooru hugs Hajime long enough for the memory of his warmth to get ingrained in his blood. Hajime buries his nose in his neck and says nothing. There’s desperation in Tooru’s hug, love and respect, a dreading fatality. Hajime doesn’t comment, the same he hasn’t asked why Tooru has made such a long journey for a mere night of companionship.

When they part, Hajime waves and pulls up his hood, hiding his face. At the light of dawn, his body seems painted by gold and fire. A son of the gods.

Tooru doesn’t forget the shiver that runs down his spine at the sight, nor does he forget the smell of the past, and the fool taste of the future

~

 

There’s blood and fire in his dreams when he finally manages to sleep.

And rooted deep in his nightmares, fresh words of relief. A voice he knows by heart, for the mountain has whispered to him every day for as long as he’s been prince.

_As fierce as we are._

It eases the weight in his heart, and at last, Hajime sleeps the sleep of the unconcerned.

 

~

 

It’s easy to forget Tooru the second time. Easy to put him back deep in his mind, where yearning has little to no place to exist. Hajime works hard on burying everything he has ever felt for Tooru, every little spark of love, of admiration, and of something he can name now but he’s still too afraid to do so.

Time should have killed their bond as easily as Hajime kills men. It’s unsettling, the realization he’s not as skilled a swordsman as to slash Tooru from him the same way he severs life.

There are enough problems here to fill his mind for a lifetime. Villagers disappearing, streets filled with blood with no bodies to explain it, southern tropes kicking at the doors of the mountain at their back. Childhood emotions are meaningless when his people are dying. Even more so, when Tooru has no plan on staying, nor of fighting alongside Hajime to save the kingdom he loves so dearly.

So Hajime forces himself to forget. It’s easy, really. Lies are always light when Hajime conjures them.

 

~

 

Tooru’s dreams are filled with blood and screams, with death and fire. He wakes up every night in a sweat, a knife held tight and a drum in his chest. It sounds like a battle chant, and as the months pass, the louder and faster it gets.

 

~

 

“What do you mean?”

Hajime stares in anguished awe at the man, kneeling before him. The heavy throne Hajime’s sat at shadows his frame, mocking the new king. The man on his knees shudders, and dares to stare up at Hajime for a long, long second.

“Your Highness, there’s nothing on the fields. Every crop has grown dead.”

“ _Everything?_ ”

The man doesn’t dare say anything else. He nods, staring at his feet, and the world falls on Hajime’s shoulders.

“Was it the lack of workers?” he asks, recalling not a single storm that could have created such damage.

“No, Your Highness. The curse— it wasn’t the curse. We’ve worked as usual. Same routine, same work, same outcome. Except—”

Except everything Montblanc grew to live through the winter is now dead, and dead it will remain, same as Hajime’s people. First a bloody curse, then his father, and now this. Hajime feels the weight of misfortune right atop his head, a sword ready to fall and end him too.

“Your Highness! Your Highness! You must come quickly!”

Hajime’s already on his feet by the time the doors of the throne hall hit the wall, and he’s walking fast past the villager when the man finally reaches him. He’s soaked in blood, and Hajime’s stomach turns.

_Not again, god, not again_

“It’s the curse,” the man swallows, cold sweat on his temples. “There’s a message this time, Your Highness.”

As if death upon death weren’t message enough. As if a people worn thin by disappearances and despair weren’t punishment enough.

There’s a deadly silence when Hajime walks down the village, doors closed and markets empty. The air is thick, filled with sobs and whispers. _Another one, did you know them? Who hasn’t come back? Is it the baker’s son this time? His daughter? His wife?_ Hajime hears, and swallows, and lets the poison of fear eat his insides.

It’s worse when he makes it to the square, because it’s bloody and it’s full and if the sobs were unbearable before they are deafening now. A gathering hides the message at first, but as soon as the villagers see their king standing before them, they scatter.

There’s a red pool on the center of the square, and from it, like fingers reaching for the sky, a letter drawn.

_You choose next._

It’s amazingly light, the feeling of absolute loss. Because there, right on the blood of someone unknown, lies Hajime’s soul and the little hope of keeping his reign good and healthy.

And so the true curse begins.

 

~

 

A year goes by. Hajime chooses, one by one, a monthly sacrifice. It’s thoughtful, at first. The bad, the evil, the worthless. It should be enough, he tells himself, it’s enough blood to feed a monster the size of the continent.

But the evil men end fast, and so do the women, and so do the children. And by the time the year hasn’t even reached its half, Hajime’s thoughtful pick has no reason to be. The bad, bad people have all gone, murdered first by Hajime’s finger and second by a beast someone has yet to see.

The random choices are worse. There’s a bowl and a handful of names, and an innocent hand dipping in it. There’s a silent read, and then tears.

A kid is sent, a mother is sent, a father, a grandmother, a kid, and another kid, and by the time the year ends Hajime’s hands are so dirtied by the blood of his own people he can’t recall a time Montblanc had not a curse tainting its shape.

And yet the innocent hand dips again, and this time, it’s Hajime’s name that’s read.

It should seem a third curse, killing the firstborn and the last of this land, but when the trembling lips draw the sounds of his name, the only thing filling Hajime’s mind is relief.

At last.

 

~

 

The battlefield isn’t yet a battlefield, but the wind knows, and so does the earth. Too much blood has been shed in this land for it to be any other way.

Tooru stands still, letting the world shift around him. The trees groan, the shadows grow, the clouds run fast. They are grey and threatening, but Tooru knows best. He hasn’t stepped on this land in almost two years, but one doesn’t forget home, and neither its vile, vile secrets.

The clouds open, then, just as Tooru expected, at the right angle, at the right place. The shadows on Montblanc’s belly lengthen, and when Tooru’s gaze locks on the enormous head of the dragon it shapes, the eye stays dry, even when the sun is right on its other side.

 _So it’s true_. But of course it’s true. Tooru has been grown and trained because of that truth, and here he is now, with a dead father and a forgotten sister and a love so big he has come to kill it.

He stays on the battlefield-yet-to-be, armed and armored. It won’t take long, now, with the sun already set before the mountain, the village in growing darkness and the people of Montblanc almost worn to extinction. There’s not much more of a monster to devour, here, beyond the little life left, the health of its nature and the promise of any possible future this cursed land can hope for.

Tooru braces himself when the first roar shakes the valley, and he draws his sword right in time to see the beast turn from stone to flesh and bones, even when the mountain has been dead as long as the monster has been alive.

The sword is small and insignificant. The dragon stops hundreds of meters away, and it shames Tooru’s weapon. Any knight would flee, at such sight. Who wouldn’t. Legends were legends because someone was left alive to tell a tale, and embellish it.

If Tooru cared about legends he might have fled. But as things are, Tooru only has one duty, and it has the exact shape of a dragon, idly walking towards him.

The stink of blood and rotten flesh hits Tooru even before the screech of the beast does. Something breaks on the side, wood or stone, nature or man-made. Tooru doesn’t care. If there were a hundred people in danger at his side, he wouldn't even look at them. There’s only one thought in his mind, and if by any chance it sings together with the beating of an enormous beast’s heart, who would care.

This is a battlefield, after all. A knight’s battlefield. If his thoughts didn’t sync with a monster’s beat, he wouldn’t be a knight, nor a legend.

Tooru thinks, _Fuck legends, fuck this_.

And he yells to the top of his lungs, “Hajime! Come back to me!”

And Hajime does, as if he’d been waiting for someone to ask him exactly that.

 

~

 

Hajime doesn’t understand. The smell, the cold, the pain, _the taste_. He’s covered in blood, but his skin shows no wound, his brain tells no pain. Tooru’s in front of him, — _Is that Tooru under all that armor? Is that really him? He looks so handsome, he shouldn’t be here, I— I—_

“Tooru. Tooru, what—”

“Hajime.” That’s enough to take the strength from his legs, and Hajime’s knee buckle. Tooru grabs him before he finds cold, wet ground, but the frozen steel of his armor makes Hajime hiss. “I got you. I got you.”

“You’re here. Why are you here? Please, Tooru, you must leave. The monster…”

Tooru hugs him, hand stroking his hair. Hajime knows the lullaby he’s singing, it’s the one his sitter sang to them both. The sitter he sent to die the eighth month, the sitter that never came back, the sitter he—

“Oh god, oh god, oh god. I— I—” The shakes are hard and breathtaking, but Hajime has enough strength to push Tooru away. “You must leave. Before I hurt you too. Leave, Tooru. Leave again and never return.”

“Hajime,” Tooru says, and it has meaning, and it’s absolute. There’s iron in his eyes, as strong as the steel he’s wearing. “I’m not leaving you. I can’t, don’t you see. I’m made to be with you.”

It doesn’t take Hajime long to grasp his meaning. He wants to scream, _No! Let me live!_ , but those would be lies to the truth of his heart. Closing his eyes, Hajime lets out a prayer. “Thank you.”

Tooru’s staring at him with the amount of love in his eyes only troubadours can put into words. The sword is still in his grip, his lips pressed with resolution.

“I have a request, before.” His voice doesn’t tremble, but his eyes are expression enough. Hajime nods. “Would you let me kiss you, at least once?”

Hajime stands and leans on Tooru, and so Tooru makes true the only beautiful dream that has ever filled his nights, and then the hundreds of nightmares that have hunted his every woken day.

The sword doesn’t do its work with the first hit. Hajime’s anguish is a sight Tooru engraves in his heart, a proper punishment, and then Hajime is gone, and his place stands a bleeding dragon, mad and deadly.

Tooru kills it, with two more blows: one on its legs, another on its neck. It falls on the battlefield, a mirror of the cursed mountain that gave it its life. Tooru goes to his knees, lets blood soak him to his bone. His tears fall in silent sorrow, so deep it cuts any sound. They touch the blood of the one he loves the most, almost invisible, and just like that, the curse shakes, and it breaks.

The mountain —Hajime— shifts in its death, and from his flesh green lively shrubs grow and grow in every way, and from his blood roses as red as the sunset climb and blossom.

Tooru doesn’t touch, barely dares to move. A voice in his head screams at him _If it were that easy, then, then, then!_

A single rose falls on his lap. It has a long stem filled with sharp prickles, petals so red, so deep, Tooru can see the sun falling back Montblanc, and a little kid, smiling.

 

~

 

_We had a dragon, once_

_For him the streets became death and blood._

_But one day a mighty knight_

_Destined to save us all_

_Turned him into petals_

_And leaves and light._

_The mountain lays asleep_

_And so we live_

_In Montblanc the dragons are forever gone_

_And so is our knight_

_With the heart of the people_

_With his legendary sword_

_And with a red blossomed rose._

_Some said it belonged to his love_

_But who would believe such lies_

_In the land of the dragon curse._

 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/EllehlEtoile) or [tumblr](https://negare-boshi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
